


c a n d y c o r n

by Mamcine_Oxfeather



Category: Reservoir Dogs (1992), TARANTINO Quentin - Works
Genre: AE - successful heist, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, And angst, Angst, FREDDYNEVERGIGGLESHEISAGROWNASSMAN, M/M, Stealth Crossover, aaaaaangst, dubcon, end of the world smut wat do u want, gross sobbing, i missed u fandom, interpersonal shenanigans, retroactive storytelling, tagspocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-04 00:31:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5313026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mamcine_Oxfeather/pseuds/Mamcine_Oxfeather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Heist has been foiled; Joe Cabot apprehended; a few good dogs have died. </p><p>Holdaway is ecstatic: Detective Newandyke's cover remains intact. Freddy now has the inside position they need to net the really big fish, so long as he can keep his own guilt in check and avoid Vega's ever-deepening scrutiny. </p><p>But things start going sour for Eddie's operation as soon as he's inherited it; things that have nothing to do with the undercover cop in their midst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Burning Victim Honored in Closed Casket Service

**SCENE: Mexico Borderlands, 002 A.A.**

Dust-clouded and blood-splattered, a refugee caravan is lurching closer to the coast in its annual sweep for supplies and survivors. The stars among the operating crew are The Sheriff (not a real Sheriff, but nobody else had the boots for the job), The Chef (actually a chef), The Mayor (kept the paperwork and oversaw munitions supplies) and The Doc (not a real doctor, but could perform medically necessary tasks without vomiting).

The Doc is the newest acquisition of the crew; another haggard soul the wasted landscape had chewed up and spat back out; leathered in the tannery of Justice and deemed fit to survive until such a thing as a natural demise, as the pamphlets said. Sheriff didn't care if the Doc had kind eyes or was good with kids or not. The Doc could knife a lumber-goon with every inch of his low center of gravity like the earth itself was reaching through him to behead his enemies. He carried an old Safari hunting rifle nearly as tall as his own meager self, and didn't shirk duties or give lip.

So when some tall drink of water wandered in through the camp, claiming the Doc was the man who had once shot him clean through the heart, well, the passengers of the caravan find that more than a little difficult to believe.

The Sheriff doesn't give a shit either way. They'd all met their judgement, and all who had been called away had gone away and it was up to those who were left to take the world back for themselves and no pre-war bullshit was going to fuck that up. Not on Sheriff Darling's watch.

The Doc had simply turned away from the bread line and dodged the stranger's approach, muttering that he didn't believe in ghosts.

* * *

**The Santino Arc  
**

* * *

**SCENE: OFFICE I**

Dusty's Garage and Spare Wholesale.

Clean, ugly little back office. Folding chairs and dixie-cup beers. Nice-Guy Eddie is explaining the situation while Messrs Orange, Blonde, White and Chartreuse try to get comfortable with cigarettes and unbuttoned jackets. Navy is perched near the door, hawk-eyed over the keg while he fiddles with his AA coin.

Blonde keeps egging Navy on, in between Eddie's little side-arguments with White. "Take a beer or don't, Pearl. Either way, stop hoverin'." Blonde levels a stare at Eddie's wordless protest. "I don't like hovering, Nice-Guy. Tell Mr. Pearl Harbor over there why I don't like hovering."

Eddie blinks, head jerking back as if he'd just been slapped with a frayed shoelace. "You can tell him yourself. After I'm done talking, maybe, and as a favor to me, right now? All I ask is that you could both sit down and shut the fuck up? Maybe?"

Blonde's smile twitches, and he drops his gaze and slowly folds his hands together. Blonde calls Navy 'Pearl Harbor' because Mr. Navy is Japanese – Navy, Pearl Harbor, get it? If you didn't get the joke you were probably just trying to be polite, and nobody in that room would ever really concern himself with being politically correct. If you got the joke, but didn't laugh, it was because you'd been on the end of Blonde's ruthless needling once or twice yourself and were mired in commiseration with the struggling alcoholic. If you got the joke and laughed, then you'd probably known Blonde for years already and understood his ways of 'making friendly'.

Or else you got the joke and didn't like it, could smell Blonde's bullshit a mile away, and laughed along with Eddie just to ease the tension in the room.

Orange was the only one who laughed when Blonde and Eddie went toe-to-toe, but then he was also the only one who laughed when White was being particularly caustic, or whenever Chartreuse countered someone with wry sarcasm. Orange's laugh was nearly always nervous. Orange was kinda one of those twitchy guys you'd think to look out for; nasal when he did speak, expressive and high-energy even as he listened. His face was always moving, eyebrows hitching up and down and together as his birdy profile swung from one speaker to the other. He'd proven himself well enough with the Santino Job, though. Steady shot. Cool head. None of the usual twitchy toady giggling bullshit.

* * *

**SCENE: DOCKSIDE II**

Back lot to shipping warehouse. Night; moths collect around wide-brimmed corridor lamps. A heavy windowless door is open to the warm light of the warehouse office, casting Mr. White and Mr. Orange in reclining shadows. From a distance, a witness might not notice all the blood on Orange's persons.

From his perspective, Mr. White can't take his eyes off the stains. "Hey, pal." A lit cigarette, passed between easy friends. "You all right?"

"Yeah," Mr. Orange is back to his usual sneering, abject self. He hitches his suit jacket closer and tries to brush a splatter of gore from his sleeve. "We got about seven more minutes." As if on cue, the scraping shuffle just inside the office pauses to let out a wet moan. "What about you?" Orange offers the cigarette but White hesitates in taking it. "This ain't your usual line of work."

"What do you know about my line of work?" White grudgingly counters, snubbing the cigarette out just because he has to extinguish something and can't quite bring himself to finish Orange's little project. Morbid curiosity mingles with frustration; regret and pity lurking around White's new batch of suspicions. "Sure, I don't  _usually_  do hits. Neither do you, in case you  _forgot_. But I overseen enough many retributions gone wrong that I know the difference between Personal and Nothing Personal; and buddy, lemme tell you, you gotta be operatin' as far away from Nothing Personal as I've ever seen. How the fuck do you know Sant – "

Orange's answer is so sharp and low that White's stomach gives a little twist, like he's just been let in on a secret. " _Goddammit_ Larry, it don't matter."

And Mr. White thinks that maybe he  _has_  been let in on something. Something deeply awful that maybe pisses him off and makes him wanna reach over and hug the kid and tell him it never happened so maybe he could go back to being twitchy and nervous and gun-shy and regular. Something a friend might ignore, might get the hint about and drop from conversation in order to leave Orange some dignity. White takes a deep breath. "We'll talk about this later, Freddy."

Orange scoffs. "Ain't nothin' to say." He doesn't wait the remainder five or so minutes Santino has left, reloading his pistol with a violent confidence White can't help but take pride in. In the next moment, Orange isn't just a tweaking smuggler with goofy rabbit eyes – he is a vindictive, tough little turd with a steady killing hand and the eyes of a stranger.

* * *

**SCENE: OFFICE II**

Dusty's Garage and Spare Wholesale.

Clean, ugly little back office. Folding chairs and dixie-cup beers. Nice-Guy Eddie is explaining the situation while Messrs Orange, Blonde, White and Chartreuse try to get comfortable with cigarettes and unbuttoned jackets. Navy is perched near the door, hawk-eyed over the keg while he fiddles with his AA coin.

"Mr. Navy? Please? Take a seat, pal. Join the conference." Eddie leans back in his own cheap fold-away, wincing as the cold metal squeaks under shifting bodies.

During the interim of a settling room, Mr. Orange had caught Mr. White's expression and gone completely still. Mr. White is studying Mr. Orange from head to toe, carefully as if trying to pull up a memory. Mr. White lifts a hand to interrupt Nice-Guy Eddie before Nice-Guy Eddie even has a chance to get started. "'Scuse me," Mr. White gruffs. "Excuse me, Nice-Guy, I just have to ask this one thing and then we can get this grift assignment sorted." Mr. White leans forward, eyes pinching up in scrutiny and concern as his voice drops. "Heya, Orange? About how long you had them shoes?"

The room stills, half in confusion and half in irritation. Only Blonde sits forward avidly, sharp blue eyes snapping bright between every face.

Orange blinks slow, large green eyes untroubled under pale eyebrows. "Um." A snort. A nasal grunt. "What."

"Yeah, shoes." Mr. White turns over his shoulder as if Eddie is supposed to know what he's talking about. Like he could maybe fucking contribute to the academic point or some shit, and you can just feel the exasperated, unspoken obscenities in the air already. "Yours. About how long have you been wearing them? Since this morning?"

Orange scoffs, leaning back to cross his arms. Confusion has been shuttered over by defense. "Yeah. So what about it?"

At this point, Eddie explodes, "WHO FUKKEN CARES?" As if summoned by this outburst, Blonde has downed his beer and stands to Eddie's side. Eddie stands to match it, jabbing a finger at Mr. White while the metal chair clatters behind him. "I don't even want to KNOW what is going on with you right now, Mr. White, I really don't; for fear it's  _fucking contagious_."

Mr. White blinks, appealing to Chartreuse and Navy and even Blonde. "Was a simple question. All I wanted to know, and the kid answered it." White props his elbow on one knee, cigarette ashing forgotten between his fingers as he gestures. "I seen everybody's shoes in this whole goddamn room, and it is by simple deductive assumption that none of you have switched gear in the past hour or so. I got my answer." Mr. White does not seem to take much joy in the discovery, though. Expression stormy and posture radiating a dangerous mockery of relaxation.

For once, Orange's face doesn't twitch into some new and telling expression. For once, he doesn't laugh. It's not like the Santino Job, though. He isn't shooting anyone. There isn't any of the hard stone to the cut of his jaw. He looks defeated in some places, thin and slumped, the dark circles under his eyes finally showing through on a face stilled of its animation.

"I have my answer, yeah." White repeats, glancing over Orange.

"So happy to oblige!" Eddie spits, hands thrown up like he wants to strangle something. Mr. Blonde has drifted to the door, matching Navy's post at the keg again. Eddie begins to pace. "So here's the fucking deal, you mooks. Ten-Trees just got sent up on a bounty; that ain't news. But Ten-Trees comes back after his old lady gets him out on bond and says our fellas what got sent up the coast for reference have been dropping like flies. Like, dead-wise. Now, by a show of hands I just need you guys to – "

"Only," White has leaned forward once more, flicking his cigarette at the nearest potted plant. "I hope those  _aren't_  your shoes, Orange. I hope you robbed some unfortunate sonovabitch to get those wingers, and for Blondie's sake it better have been right the fuck before you showed your face in this room here today."

Nice-Guy looks like he's about to go apoplectic, but he snaps into a state of total dead-pan. "Oh, so now Blonde is an element in the great footwear caper. Color me surprised. Mr. White?" Eddie waits for White to acknowledge him. "Mr. White, I can't even begin to give a fuck about your next interruption. Maybe you don't like Navy's haircut. Maybe the tie on Chartreuse ain't quite black enough. Whatever the fuck it is, I'm going to ask you girls to take it outside while the adults conduct business."

Blonde chuckles, pulling the toothpick from his mouth like it's a cigarette.

* * *

**SCENE: DOCKSIDE I**

The car horn startles Orange; he nearly drops his beer.

"We got pickup," White grins from the window, easy cruisin' as he bangs on the side of the car. "And hey lookit that, you're dressed for a job already. You just get back from a funeral or somethin'?"

Orange's heart is pounding in his brain, and the forty in its paper bag is cold and dead in his hands. "Yeah, a funeral." A weak, ill grin that White can't see in the glare of the Californian afternoon. Marvin Nash's funeral, at which Orange was not technically allowed to be seen. "Buddy 'a mine, died young." Orange slides into the passenger seat and glaces around the street before taking another pull on his beer. He'd already had three of those little gas-station tequila samplers, thoughts bogged in the late heat of fall.

"Hey, that's too bad. Another overdose?"

"Nah. Got shot over some bullshit." Orange fishes his sunglasses out of his pockets and unearths his cigarettes in the process. The forty is decimated, the bottle thrown from the window of the cruiser while they hurtle down the highway.

By the time they reach the port, Orange is in a bitter mood. White had taken up much of the conversation detailing the assignment; escort and checkup, runners for a heavy payment one of Papa Joe's old contacts held in backed debt. Who had been sent ahead to scout the deal with Marc-Angelo Santino but Mr. Blonde, along with a hired gun who had been dubbed Mr. Chartreuse – and may or may not have been the ugliest woman Orange had ever seen. Woman (man?) could have given Mick Jagger a run for his money, but he was quiet and professional in that dead-eyed way in which Blonde seemed incapable.

Blonde, who was already complaining over the blood he was getting on his knuckles. Blonde, who shook dark sweat-limp hair form his eyes to laugh as if in relief. "See if you can't talk some sense into the man," Blonde, who patted White's shoulder in greeting and in plea, completely ignoring the suspicious glare.

"What happened to his men?"

Blonde lifts his chin toward the two corpses stacked near the back exit. "Why? They lookin' a little...  _green_  to you?" An exaggerated leer, to which Orange and Chartreuse both roll their eyes.

White hocks a loogie to the pavement, wiping his chin and regarding the bodies over the hill of his sleeve. "They're lookin' a little dead, you fuckin' lunatic."

While White and Blonde bicker over who drew whose guns first, Orange begins to circle around an injured, overweight old man laid out in a four-hundred dollar suit on the grimy floor of the docking warehouse. Santino is clutching a rosary. Orange's bile rises.

There wasn't a detective alive on the entire west coast that didn't know about the Santino family; they were the Borgias of the underworld and their corruption spread from Mexico to Canada, from human trafficking to organ theft to kiddie porn. There was no possible evidence to collect against this Santino patriarch that could get him behind bars, not just then. Nothing in the forefront but some long-owed cash not yet laundered to Cabot's ends.

No way to see this monster nabbed or tagged, no information to be gathered here for the greater good. Blonde would beat the guy up, Chartreuse might help; hell, even White seemed ready to do whatever was needed to get the job done so he could go home. Did any of them know? They had to. A rap sheet as long as Orange's arm; that kinda shit didn't go unlauded. Did any of them actually give a fuck, even if they did know? Orange didn't want to examine that question too closely. If they knew, and they gave a fuck, the guy would probably already be dead. No, they just wanted what was owed Joe (and by extension, what was owed Eddie, and by further extension what was actually owed them) and apparently the drop-off had been light.

Orange gave a fuck, but not about the money. He gave a fuck about Babette, Nancy, Carmicheal and Jesus. Galilee DeLoria, Timothy Smithe, Rodriguez Lallo. He gave a fuck about the teenaged runaways and the drunk collegiates that disappeared down Sunset Strip in broad daylight, only to resurface in the ocean or never. He gave a fuck about the strung-out mothers bawling into their bony knuckles because they shoulda done this or that or paid more attention or smoked less crack or some fucking thing. Orange gave a fuck because Freddy Newandyke gave a fuck, and it was getting harder and harder to separate the two of them; near impossible whenever a gun was settled warm and heavy in their palm.

The first cracking shot silences the room; Orange had stepped on Santino's wrist to hold his arm out straight, the aim of the gun a solid line from shoulder to arm to wrist to finger to trigger to bullet to the joint of Santino's elbow. A wet pop; the first mist of blood. Santino's agonized screams spur Orange to the other side of his bulk, kicking him over until the second arm is pried and pinned. Orange tries to soothe the old pervert into some semblance of cooperation so he can get a clear shot. The kneecaps follow, significantly easier to expose, pop,  _pop_.

"'Scuse me," Orange waves Blonde away from the door. Orange kicks the door open wide; a heavy rusted thing that scrapes and screeches on tired hinges. "Mr. Santino," Orange repeats the man's name until the sobs die down to inquisitive grunts. "Mr. Santino, if you can make it out of this door in thirty minutes or less, we'll let you live. Shit," Orange beams at his team, who had fallen into the stunned grip of intense curiosity. "You make it even halfway out, I'll call you an ambulance."

Lighting their cigarettes one by one, Eddie Cabot's men dutifully settle in to watch the heavy man flop his bloody limbs like a half-brained walrus. Chartreuse remains impassive, Blonde forever chuckling with some fresh pun; Mr. White holds up the hard edge of re-appraisal and Mr. Orange is carefully ignoring the attention.

* * *

**SCENE: OFFICE III**

Dusty's Garage and Spare Wholesale.

Clean, ugly little back office. Folding chairs and dixie-cup beers. Nice-Guy Eddie is staring at the seats White and Orange have vacated. Navy is perched near the door, hawk-eyed over the keg while he fiddles with his AA coin. Blonde shifts from foot to foot, expressly forbidden to leave the room on the grounds that he was a meddlesome fuckwit who was always undermining Eddie's authority and it would serve him right if White actually shot his dumb ass. Chartreuse is detailing her report on Gregoria's last few drops before he disappeared.

Blonde's attention has wandered out of the tiny office window to the yard beyond. He starts to chuckle.

* * *

Orange is not ready for the blow. Mr. White seems to change his mind between a fist and an open-hand slap, effectively clubbing Orange broadsided with a hand not quite wholly curled. It's the noise of it more than the pain, a bright thundering interruption of Orange's whirring thoughts. Orange doesn't stumble, and the hard sick thing inside of him retaliates automatically, punch weak and hesitant even as Larry catches the bony fist and headbutts Freddy to his knees. The second blow is a rock-solid fist, splitting Freddy's lip wide open and nearly throwing him from the desperate clutch he's got on Larry's shirt front.

Mr. Orange doesn't ask any questions, having been silent the whole walk from the office through the garage to the junk lot. He maybe grunts once or twice, a breathless acknowledgment of physical pain. Biting back on the bone-deep ache that threatens to have him sobbing like a little bitch because it was  _Larry_  who was kicking the snot out of him, Larry who was shaking Freddy to a stand only so he could knock Freddy down again.

Larry wanted it to be known out loud, that he couldn't fucking believe any of it, that he didn't want to, that Freddy better goddamn speak up and deny it or he'd kill that sonovabitch mad-dog and give the same to anybody who'd be stupid enough to tell him not to.

The scuffle was over in as many moments as it took for Orange to reconcile his panic, Nice-Guy's height and bulk prying itself between them. Orange realizes he has to let go of Larry's shirt in order to save his own damn self, but he doesn't want saving just then.

"AWRIGHT!" Eddie thunders. "Its fucking done now!" He has to repeat himself because White is still trying to reach for Orange, either to stand him up or throttle him. Eddie wields his height to push White all the way back to the chain-link fence. "It's done, man. You had your say. Let it fucking rest, whatever it is that happened; just let it fucking be done now. No changing nothing. Just let it go."

"No changing it," White echoes hollowly, fixing the array of his shirt and brushing at the spots of blood as if they would fall away like crumbs.

"No changing what's done; so it's done. Whatever the fuck it was," Eddie steadies White's hard lean against the back of the fence. "I mean hey, I could care less, right? But we need Orange in one piece, you know?" An elbow, raised eyebrows, Eddie chuckling. White bends as if he's been winded, hands on his knees and peering around Eddie's interference to inspect the bloody mess he'd made out of Orange. Eddie stands White back up with a wide hand. "Breathe, old man. What, you're gonna tell me Orange killed yer mother? Fucked your daughter? The way you were beatin' on him, and that business with shoes, I'm thinkin' you found a set of incriminating footprints? Fuck man, do you even have kids?"

White glares, easily baited. "No kids, you asshole. If I did I wouldn't have any old enough for Orange to – " He bites off the word, expression darkening despite Eddie's plea against staying riled. "If I see that cocksucker Vega again, I'm shooting him. You don't call me for no jobs with that maniac, you hear me Junior?" White is fixing his hair by now, breathing hard but composing himself. "I'm telling you now, it is only with respect for your father that I ever stuck with this team. I'll work with Orange because, like you said, what's done is done. But you keep Vega away from me if you want to keep Vega breathing."

Eddie is laughing at the absurdity, glancing around the lot for any grasp of a clue. "You ain't gonna tell me what this is even about, then?"

Orange has picked himself up and is leaning heavily against a stack of tires by now. He glances up to catch White's gaze and tries to cover his reaction with a nicotine cough. The sniffle could be a bloody nose more than it could be tears, but then it could just as easily be tears from the pain of the beating rather than tears to douse the sharp sting in his gut. His face hangs toward the ground like it's going to fall off, mouth stuck open in an unvoiced question and split brow heavy over eyes clouded with utter and all-consuming  _shame_.

White hums and nods to himself. "That's between me and Orange and Blonde. I'm sorry, Eddie. I'm sorry it had to be this way."

"Woah, woah!" Eddie waves his hands in wide, exasperated arcs. "Nobody's sayin' goodbye! Nobody's shootin' nobody else, neither! You're gonna go home and cool off and then you're gonna come 'round my office 'cos I got some words Papa wanted me to pass on to you and then we're gonna talk, you and me."

"Ain't nothin' to talk about," White counters, loud enough for all to hear. Orange winces with his whole body, giving in to the pain to curl into a sit at the base of the tire stack. White's parting words drop like stones in the clarified depths of Orange's thoughts. "It's done. There's no changing it."

* * *

**SCENE: DOCKSIDE III**

The four take a late meal at a greasy spoon diner named after its truckstop. The waitress is old and cynical and chats White up like she wants something from him. Orange has settled deeper into the corner booth, knee against Larry's warm thigh and shoulder encroaching the perfumed territory of Chartreuse's arm. Orange is a sprawler who glares insolently out at the rest of the diner as if it were the looming hangover. He'd lost his gory clothing for conspicuous reasons, a little bit vain over the fact that he got to be that hardass in an undershirt surrounded by well-pressed tuxedo shirts with open collars and immaculate suit jackets. A little bit vain over the fact that he knew he looked like hell and felt like hell and the truckers couldn't meet his gaze for very long.

Maybe the waitress just wanted to get to know White because White was the only one at that table who didn't actually look like he made a habit of killing people. After she leaves with their drink orders (water, water, coffee, got any booze in this joint?) Orange and White's questions nearly collide. Orange is a bit quicker that evening, though he wants to ask White how he manages to be Joe freaking Cool all the damn time, all he can focus on was that waitress and her leathery smile. "You know that girl?" It comes out of Orange just like that, as if the forty-something woman had only to put her hair into a ponytail and wear tennis shoes to be a teenager.

"She reminds me of every woman I'm related to. Aunts, mother, sister. All of 'em. They even speak the same; wonder if she's from the East coast or what." White rubs his face and forehead as if to clear it of cobwebs.

Blonde, in one of his more contemplative moods, counters slowly. "Maybe she just has one of those faces..."

White twists his jacket open and throws his elbow to the back of the seat like he's fed up, neck craning to scope for any approaching drink tray. "Yeah, sure does. One of those faces like she been through hell and back but is ready to lie her ass off and tell us all the world ain't so bad. Serve us some fucking pie and pretend not to notice the bullet scars."

Orange shifts uncomfortably, pale arms exposed to the scrutiny of sharp diner waitresses. The spidering scar on the right shoulder, that one was the worst because the surgeon had to fish around for shrapnel and bone and then try and stitch his muscle and tendon back to its rightful order. Orange coughs into a curled fist, faking a scoff. Faking a laugh. "Yer some kinda sap, White."

Instead of the expected defense, White glances sharply back at Orange like he'd forgotten he was even there. "Where the fuck did you even learn to shoot like that?"

Blonde snorts. "Yeah tell us Orange; did you go to Harvard - or Yale - for your degree in Point-and-Squeeze?"

White jabs a finger over the table at Blonde "If I wanted an answer from Casual Homicide's poster boy, I'd ask you. But I don't, so shut the fuck up. Orange-?" A helpless hitch of his shoulders, Larry pulling his elbows in and chopping the air with his hands like he's just laid his confusion out next to the napkins and doesn't know what to do with it.

Orange shrugs the unscarred shoulder. "Would you believe me if I told you Columbia, on a snow job?" Holdaway had been right; Freddy Newandyke was a natural at Improv. All those cheesy noir films and low-budget crime dramas seeped into the veins of his character while so much wide-eyed comic-book reading had kept his day-to-day facade fresh and original. New. Believable. Mr. Orange was a tweaky little fuck, but sometimes a bit of Columbia showed through in his grasp of Spanish, in the corded tension of muscle, in the way he could shoot a man. The people at that table, they don't know that Orange can speak passable Spanish because Freddy went to a guido school nearer the border, nor that Freddy's muscle was gained from years at Police Academy, rather than Orange laboring away in a sunless coca factory. And where Orange had learned to shoot, well, Freddy Newandyke hardly knew himself. Freddy Newandyke had shot plenty, and it always left him cold and hard and humorless.

White's tension builds for a few seconds, then ebbs away as quickly as it had come. He chuckles, shaking his head. "This fucking guy..." A nod to Chartreuse, who is smirking to an unfathomable end. "All right, kid." White digs up a cigarette. Lights it. Hands it over. "All right."

* * *

  **SCENE: Mexico Borderlands, 002 A.A.**

  
The Sheriff knocks on the flimsy tin door like she knows the man inside the trailer is awake and listening. "You know that wanderer Oatsey picked up last week?"

The Doc's muffled voice drifts out through the cracks of the corrugated lean-to. The name is a question of smoke in the air, or some pebbles knocked loose down a canyon - the inevitable violence of gravity. "Vic Vega."

The Sheriff lets herself into the small dark shelter, brandishing a hot thermos. "I brought Joe. Thought we could have a gab."

The Doc glances up from an engineering magazine, startled. "Oh, you mean coffee."

"What, you thought I meant some guy named Joe?" The Sheriff never hardly laughs, but her smile is warm and fond.

"Yeah," the Doc clears a lawn chair of its clutter, "Yeah, Papa Joe." He takes a heavy sit, tired and showing it, as if the past month of peace had been just as grueling as an entire season's violent unrest. "Of the Cabot family."

"Family? Like, mob bosses and bowler hats?" The Sheriff pours the coffee in its tin cap, claiming a sip herself before passing it over.

The Doc stills over the steam, inhaling deep before setting the brew on a stack of newspapers. "Yeah. Something like that."

"Well? I don't want any of that sort of thing in my caravan, Doc. The way you've been hiding, like trouble-with-a-capital-T just waltzed back into your life? Tall stack of trouble, in cowboy boots? Gonna huff an' puff and knock your skull in with that big fucking axe of his?" The Sheriff has a habit of sticking her hip out when she sasses people, and even wiggles to some distant rhythm of wordsy poesy and the Doc often wonders just what exactly the woman  _did_ before... all this. Besides frequent coffee shops. "Think you maybe need to do something about that soonish? Come on out of your gopher hole?"

The Doc smiles, a watery sour expression. Helpless. Hands clasped between his knees. "I already killed the man once. Not too keen on trying again."

"You know what he told me the other day at the breakfast line, this Vic Vega?"

"Crazy fuck probably sang you the National Anthem for all I care." The Doc resumes his magazine pointedly, glaring into the margins.

"He  _warned_ me about you. Said you were a bit of a loose cannon, that you have a history of losing your cool and would rather negotiate with physical fucking retaliation."

"And he was laughing the whole time, I bet."

The Sheriff shrugs. "He was smiling, a bit, I guess. I mean, I thought it was some kinda bullshit too at first, but Doc," Darling starts a brisk, controlled pace in the confined quarters, her pegleg  _thmp-tmping_  across the linoleum. "Bruv, I've seen you out of bullets. I'm inclined to believe that you've got a few issues you like to take out on the crawlies."

"Aw christ, Darling, that's called survival!"

"All I know is that I need trouble between you and Vega like I need another amputation. So what's it gonna be, Doc, you going to take your little reunion out of civil borders or am I going to have to throw you out?"

The Doc sits back, amusement playing tag with horror across his corporeal. "He convinced you  _I_  was the psychopath?"

"He said you were unpredictable and easily provoked. After the Canyon, I'm inclined to believe him."

The Doc leans forward, magazine all but forgotten as it slumps from chapped fingertips. "I saw that animal burn a man alive. It's Vega who is cracked in the skull, Darlin'."

"Okay, let's say I believe that too. More the reason for you to bed this ghost back in its grave, yeah?"

The Doc chews the inside of his cheek. "You haven't let Vega past Residencies?"

"It's why he's always hanging around the distribution lines, isn't it?"

"Send him on up to the Clinic, then."

"I don't want blood in my c - "

An explosive laugh, like a gunshot. "If Vega wanted me dead, he'd have gotten past your ladies by charm or by choke. Send the bastard up. I'll deal with it."

* * *

**c . a . n . d . y . c . o . r . n**


	2. 27 Wounded, 14 Dead in Arrest, Joseph Cabot to Face Multiple Charges

**SCENE: PAYPHONE I**

Raw in the middle, Orange bends in the small rectangle of scuffed and milky plexiglass, bracing the shake of his hands against the shake of his knees. "I'm still in." Repeating as if it could answer all of the furious questions from the other end of the line, "I'm still in, yeah." Laughter hitches itself under bruised green eyes. "I know. It's been a while. I had to heal. Fill you in when I get a chance to sneak back to base."

Orange hangs up with overwhelming satisfaction, but he can't let go of the thick black plastic of the receiver.

* * *

**SCENE: SAFEHOUSE I**

There is a bed in a room in a house in the suburbs, and it is damp with fear sweat and pain sweat, the sheets coarse with the sting of bleach.  The Latino girls down the block are singing something sad, the afternoon outside the bedroom's window is bright and hot.

Orange's beer is cold, crisp, and cheap. It could have been piss-warm apple juice and it still would have been the greatest fucking beverage in Orange's life because he was _alive_ to _enjoy_ it.

White had sat in the room's only sagging arm chair and unbuttoned his vest, smile kind and worn. He took his own shot of expensive whiskey and saluted the dingy apartment; Doc Faraday's second-hand hideaway for coalescing criminals, unassuming and cluttered. If ice-cold, cheap-ass beer from the corner mart was what Orange wanted, then ice-cold, cheap-ass beer from the corner mart was what Orange would get.

White throws back his drink and smacks his lips, shifting forward to signal that they would now Speak Business. "It was Pink, to nobody's surprise. It was Pink with all the 'there's a rat and I know it ain't me' bullshit. 'Hid the loot', my ass. Ran the rest of the crew right smack dab into another ambush, after we got you out of that warehouse."

Orange pulls the bottle from his lips and wicks the condensation from his thumb before settling back into the macrame pillows with a wince. This probably wasn't the best thing for his injury, alcohol hitting his gut like a cold punch. "They got him on witness?"

White nods with a small disappointed frown. "Slick little fuck is in the Program now, eatin' pussy and peaches in the heartland of anonymous suburban America."

"Nah," Orange fishes a gummy bit of blood from the corner of his lips, grimacing. "Canada, if it's our luck."

White grunts his amusement, staring down at the empty glass between his hands. "Okay, kid." He stands, seeks out the bony lump under the threadbare sheets that turns out to be Orange's knee, giving it a shake and a squeeze to get a smile on the hollow-eyed face. "You rest up. Nice Guy is gonna need to talk to you by the end of the week." White smirks, his eyes practically twinkling with pride. "Needs more men in a permanent crew type way, now that Joe is in the clink. Good opportunity."

"Yeah," Orange's return grin is practiced regret, perfected by his bloodless pallor. "Wish I coulda made rank under better circumstances, though."

"Hey, sure." White pats Orange's bare shoulder, giving a warm squeeze and a small recriminating shake - like he can't stop touching the guy, can't stop reassuring them both he was alive. "We all wish that, but better to take advantage of what good this whole debacle can present, yeah? No use cryin' over spilt milk." White dusts his hands, buttons his vest. "I know Joe; he's a tough old fuck like me, got friends on the inside. He'll be all right. And he'll keep mum about the rest of us, don't you ever worry about that."

"What're we gonna do with Blonde?"

White has his jacket halfway on. "What about Blonde?"

"He kinda fucked up the entire job, Larry."

White shrugs into his blazer, fixing the buttons up despite the heat. "That fink rat Pink and about twenty of the city's finest fucked up the job, Fred. I wasn't too pleased by Blonde's lunacy, sure, but -"

Orange wants to sit forward, but the morphine had been worn down a little like a shell under a wave, and he could already feel the stiff pain start to settle in its wake. He clears his throat instead. "Last time I checked, you were gonna shoot the guy like Old fucking Yeller."

"Yeah." White frowns up at the door, nodding. "Yeah, but he got you outta there. Wasn't nothin' we coulda done for Joe, but that mad dog got us out. Some things, kid," White's heavy hand wags in the air between them. "Some things can redeem." The hat is the last to go on, the true parting signal. "I'll send ya some get-well flowers or somethin'. Get the stink outta this room." White's grin disappears past the closing bedroom door.

Orange glares up at the suspended blood bag, hand twitching away from the IV cord. If he'd only aimed a little to the left, he could have shot Vic Vega. He could have shot the crazy fucker down. It probably would have cost him his life as well as the mission, but then he wasn't so sure as if he'd mind anymore. Too many innocent people were dead at the end of his great marksmanship, and far, far too many people were dead at the end of Vega's. Woulda been a fair trade, his life for all that.

The Police had finally canned Papa Joe Cabot, and sure, Freddy was still on the inside. His cover had only solidified with Mr. Pink's farced confession (not to mention Orange's own bloody contributions, though Blonde had been indignant over the mercy kill of Marvin Nash). The way into the higher, more dangerous inner circle of organized crime was now wide open for Freddy Newandyke's thieving alias.

It was great.

It was also fucking awful.

Orange closed his eyes and downed the beer, relishing the icy burn through his abused insides. He imagined he could feel it soak through him like water through a cartoon zombie, trickling out of the hole in his gut. That was probably just the morphine, though.

* * *

**SCENE: BAR, PRE-HEIST**

"And what are ya, anyway, a cop?"

One two... five six, seven. Seven words had never stopped Detective Newandyke's heart so completely. Time spun out like taffy in the big metal arms of its machine; the fellas were laughing, and the record scratch is glossed over with a can of ceramic polish.

"Jesus, Orange, don't look so stricken. I was only kiddin'." Nice Guy Eddie pats Orange on the back, chuckling under his words.

Freddy Newandyke remembers how to breathe. "I hate cops, man," His words are shaken, but he lights the cigarette smooth and cool, more angry than startled. "My pops was a fucking blueback." The lie had come spur of the moment, because he needed an excuse for his over-reaction. Well. Improv at its best, shoving both feet squarely in his own mouth.

"Hey man, that's tough." Eddie's pat turns consoling, a squeeze on his shoulder before he's released. "There's having an old man who's a hardass, and then there's having an old man who's a fucking cop. Or an army general or some shit." A derisive snort.

"Or a teacher," Pink chimes in, the curl of distaste hitching his moustache up. He knocks back the last swallow of his beer in sympathy, adam's apple bobbing in the thin stretch of his neck.

Brown nods, jutting his chin out like he can relate. "It's a hard rap, man. No matter what you do, you never meet standard."

"T'ch." Eddie raises a toast, "To Papa Joe, the best father any grown criminal could ever ask for, hahaha!"

They meet the toast, calling a round of 'here, here' and 'salut'. Brown and Blonde have been pulled from their debate on tits vs. ass, and what effect that has on a female musician's ability to sell records. Brown's inquisitive glance lights on every face and then goes back to Pink, who in his usual habit has highjacked their argument to get his own two cents in (nonono, you get famous singing first, and _then_ you get some tits. Or ass. You know they can do ass surgery nowadays, too? Yeah, I seen it).

Blonde's eyes remain squarely on Orange, who first scowls and later throws his shoulders up in a shrug. "What?"

"Whaddya mean, 'what'?" Blonde smirks.

Eddie, ever the diplomat, nudges Vega in the side. "Blondie here is just jealous 'cos his Pa was a cop too and now he ain't special no more."

"Stuff it, Nice Guy."

"I'm just sayin'. No need to mad-dog the new guy just 'cos you got somethin' in common."

Blonde laughs, hard and brief and forced, none of the usual drawling mockery. "You two are a couple of regular Einsteins, what with all this witholdin' of personal information you're getting up to. I could learn a lot from both a' you fellas, exemplifyin' all your practice in the nature of fuckin' _discretion_." Blonde's eyebrows raise as he grumbles around the mouth of his beer bottle, "Fer fuck's sake."

White isn't there (and come to think of it, neither is Blue, but it's not like White is as old as -), but then White isn't ever there unless it's business and they get up to enough of that the closer the deadline of the heist draws. There's a gap where White's words should be, some settling argument or a reprimand or agreement or _anything_ , but all Orange hears is the din of the bar picking up volume in the lapse of conversation. His ears are nearly ringing from his own blood pressure, and the booze isn't doing anything to help that. He's kinda disappointed, Orange is, of White's absence. There wasn't hardly anything new to be learned from the jokers at this table (other than the cop-is-a-dad bit of info on Vega, which was probably already on file). But there was always something new to be learned from White, even if it was how to walk and talk and treat the lady who kept the shots coming (like a class act, that's how).

Freddy Newandyke on the other hand, is not at all disappointed at White's absence - he didn't want to deal with the inveterate criminal's piercing scrutiny on the topic of fathers (who were also police, apparently).

Eddie throws his hands up, exhales a long and sarcastic saaaawreeeee, pinky ring glinting as he flaps his hands in mock panic. Blonde tries to slap Eddie's hands out of his face and it inevitably dissolves into a scuffle, one ducking the high bar table as the other goes for a kidney shot and a shoulder upsets the stability of any drink foolish enough to be full and outta someone's hand.

"You wanna take this outside, tough guy?" Eddie huffs, laughing and going for a feint while Blonde straightens up to smooth back his hair and apologize to the waitress for his friend's drunken antics. The waitress collects the empty bottles and toppled glasses without making eye contact, to which Blonde winces and turns his hand into an imaginary gun, aiming a bull's eye and pulling the trigger with a wink. Orange is caught staring, but then that's nothing new, because Orange is a rabbity fuck who stares a lot.

Blonde, wolfish in his observations, is the only one who stares back.

* * *

**SCENE: SAFEHOUSE II**

Mr. Orange has something to say to Mr. White **.** "I gotta," Orange swallows hard, chest shuddering in the cold grip of shock. "I gotta tell ya s-somethin' Larry," Orange doesn't like the threedy whine to his voice, doesn't want to sound like he's seventeen and just broke his arm on the football field and can't stammer loud enough that everyone could _see the fucking bone_. He can't seem to crawl out of that memory of blinding pain and detached amazement, babbling like a fucking kid who'd never seen his own blood in the dirt. Clutching onto White's solid frame in the middle of that warehouse like something pathetic out of _Casablanca_.

White combs Orange's hair back, smoothing the sweat off of his forehead. "Right, kid. You go ahead and say whatever you need to."

Orange's smile is watery, more a grimace as his jaw clenches in another blood-wet spasm. "My name, man." Orange is gripped by his own breath, chest working rapidly as if God were squeezing him like a bellows. "It's Fred." Whispered over and over. "It's my name, Larry, it's Fred."

White tightens his grip, glancing up at the sound of an approaching car engine just outside the warehouse. "Okay, tough guy. Okay. That's good. We're gonna get you outta here. Just hang tight, Freddy."

By the end of that awful cock-up massacre, it's not Lawrence and Frederick: it's Larry and Freddy. Blood and bullets and a stolen car between them, drinks and jokes and the kind of brotherhood that is only known by honorable thieves. 'Freddy' Newandyke (undercover cop) is Mr. Orange (smooth criminal), and as of that moment he's also Frederick Glasgow (twitchy junkie looking to climb ladders). He wears a wedding ring for an imaginary wife, and lives in an apartment decorated by an imaginary past.

Orange wakes up in damp sheets.

Victor Vega (Joe Cool wise-assing childhood friend of Eddie Cabot) is Mr. Blonde (resident berserker felon lunatic). He is leaning silently in the open door jamb of Orange's loaned room. His arms are crossed, the glow of a cigarette the only thing lighting up narrowed eyes in the gloom. "Heya kid." Blonde rasps, taking a loud theatric drag on the cigarette, exhaling his next question. "How's the belly?"

Freddy is unnerved in every way imaginable by Vic Vega; he'd been a fairly low-key player what with the parole for good behavior and all, but then at the prospect of being sent back up the river by a twitchy store clerk with an alarm button, Vega had snapped. Shot all those people in cold blood, reassuring the horrified members of his team that they didn't want to leave witnesses anyhow.

"They had ta cut out some 'a my guts, man." Mr. Orange is not here, nor is Newandyke. It's just Freddy, scared and hurting and bewildered. Dry-mouthed after a recollective morphine nightmare.

Blonde chuckles, "Gutless," and taps his ash in the whiskey tumbler White had left behind. After a heavy consideration of the remaining ember, "Gutless? Get it?"

Freddy is convinced Blonde can see right through him, through everything, like how crazy people could maybe tell the future, but that paranoia was probably just the morphine talking. "Sure." Orange's laugh is a pale effort. "Sure, man." Freddy tries to call up his character, slipping into the facade like pulling on a new sweater. Orange wouldn't take that crap, not unless he were trying to stay on Vega's good side (and that would only raise suspicion, because really Orange has no reason to openly fear the guy despite Newandyke's mortified knowledge and Christ this shit was complicated enough without being drugged as balls). "Kinda like how Blonde is just a polite way of saying Yellow. You can be yellow, and I can be gutless."

The joke hangs in the dark air between them. Somewhere in the ghetto, a radio blares to life and is cut off after the refrain of a bad moon on the rise.

Blonde pulls at his smoke, grin glinting in the exhale. "You wanna say that again? My hearing ain't too great." A tap against the side of his head to illustrate, or maybe shake something loose. "Y'know. After all that buckshot."

It had been running in the back of Orange's thoughts, just what exactly Vega was doing there – until he parced out the stiff way Blonde was favoring his side, and the bulk of bandaging just under the pressed white overshirt. Orange wasn't the only one recuperating in the safehouse, it seemed. He rallied, "Yeah all right. So yer a war hero."

"Damn fuckin' straight." Vega takes the armchair with a grunt, legs kicked up on the bedside. "Keep an eye on the door, will ya?" A heavy clatter narrates the addition of a 9mm to the bedside table. "Forty winks in as many hours, Christ." Blonde stretches out as Orange takes the gun.

Orange fingers the firearm, hefting it and thumbing the safety off. Checks down the sights, careful not to aim at the target Newandyke so desperately wants to aim at. "Who am I watching for, exactly?"

But Blonde is out, fingers twined over his stomach and head thrown back like he couldn't even begin to imagine Orange as a threat. Sometimes, the way Vega did shit like that, it was insulting. Other times, which Freddy suspected would frequent the coming year or so, it was a huge fucking relief.

Freddy was in the club.

He was on the way up.

He was going to bring about the century's biggest bust.

He was probably going to get killed.

He was okay with that.

Freddy's stomach gives a painful little lurch, limbs weak and shaking. His guts, man. The doc had to cut away a bit of his stomach and pieces of intestine, sewing it all back up and telling Freddy he ought to become a praying man for that the bullet had missed his spine, liver, kidneys... It had hurt like nothing else ever would, and was going to hurt for some time yet, but Freddy was alive and drugged and in the fucking club, man.


	3. Roads Shut Down for Weather, Local Surfer Drowns, Family Quoted, Forecast to Follow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know thee for a man of many thoughts,  
> And deeds of good and ill, extreme in both,  
> Fatal and fated in thy sufferings.
> 
> "Manfred", Lord Byron

* * *

  **SCENE: CABOT FAMILY ESTATE I**

It was the fourth job Nice Guy had set up without the help of his father, and the first job Mr. Orange was hale enough to sit in on.

Blonde reclined against Joe's old desk in Joe's old study, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest to better hear Eddie's proposal (alongside a skinny locksmith of indeterminable Asian descent and some old black gofer who had introduced himself as Mr. Go-fuck-yourself, kid).

"Awright, down to brass tacks. It's a midnight grab-and-go. No witnesses, no cops, none of that extraneous shit." Eddie stabs a sausage finger down on the blueprints the gofer had brought them, velvet track suit rumpled and droopy hang-dog eyes shadowed with the worries of a man whose father was on trial for multiple conspiracy homicide bullshittery (along with the obvious taking-shit-that-didn't-belong-to-him spiel). "Mr. Diego, you're on security. This is a real antique type place, but I ain't gonna underestimate what kinda high-tech nonsense these pedantic fucks might have up their sleeves, dig?" Meeting the eyes of everyone present. Orange nods with the rest, but Blonde just lifts an eyebrow. Eddie sits back in Joe's old chair, cheeks puffing out with a long bracing exhale. "Mr. Orange? That's where you come in. Case the joint during business hours. Report back here in three days or less with whatever you find,  _capice_?"

Blonde coughs into a fist, then pats himself down for a toothpick he fails to unearth. "So what do I do, boss?" The last is stressed in a half-bite, Blonde's grin tight and his eyes pinched up in disapproving scrutiny.

"You move the fukken product, and you don't give me shit about it, Vega." The room goes visibly tense under the hard clap of Nice-Guy's reprimand. It was the first time Orange heard Vega addressed as Vega, though not the first time Eddie had given Vega a shit job on a project. White hadn't been the only one to recognize Vega's catalytic role in the snafu that had ended with Papa Joe's capture and the deaths of a few good fellas, it seemed.

Blonde delivers his rejoinder in an ever-amicable tone, signature disarming smile ghosting over genuine curiosity, "So I escort the goods to a proper grift who can fence the shit no questions asked, but what do I do until then? Sit on my thumbs and twiddle myself all the live-long fucking day?"

Eddie squeaks air out through his teeth. "You'll stay the fuck out of trouble is what you'll do. Take your fukken parole officer out for coffee or something." He waves dismissively and Orange waits for Diego to stand before following suit. Eddie is addressing a sheaf of papers, calling out to reassure the company as it departs, "Mr. Georges, I'll have your payment after the cash from this project is nice and crystal, my man. Mr. Orange, hold up a minute." Orange steps around his chair to let the other two pass. Eddie glares up at Vega, who bats his eyelashes. "Orange, you're gonna take Vic here on the case-out. Nice and subtle, you hear me?"

Orange nods slowly, though his thoughts run chaotic red-alarms and seven phrases of protest all heavily laced with 'fuck no'. He fishes a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his bomber jacket, absently handing one over to the lunatic with whom he would be working. Vega takes the cigarette and lights it without breaking eye contact with Eddie, whose glower only worsens.

"You hear me, Vega? I don't even want you stepping foot on that property armed. Probably little kids and shit on their school trip gonna be there, mercy's fucking sake."

"Yeah, Eddie." Blonde's concession is quiet, soft and grating as the cigarette is lit with a tilt of his chin into cupped palms. He waves the match out with exaggerated movement, donning a mask of concern. "Whatever you say." A shrug, a sniff, glancing out the office's large french-partitioned window.

"Don't act like I'm the bad guy here, Victor. Do your job and try not to give Orange too bad a headache." The shuffle of papers, Eddie's glare unwavering. "Go ahead and amscray, fellas. I got a date with an Aspirin and a bottle of scotch that I don't wanna be late for."

Orange holds up a hand in parting. "Sure thing, Nice Guy." He ambles from the office, trying to reign in his pulse. For a minute there, Orange thought he might witness another of Vega and Eddie's epic scuffles, but something about Joe's absence had put a shiny patine on Eddie's authority that his nice-guy veneer never commanded.

Vic had even followed Orange out of the office without further fuss, pulling silent on the cigarette. "Heya Orange, thanks for the smoke." Like everything Vega says, it's only half sincere and probably code for something else entirely, as if with every word, Vic Vega could be telling you of your imminent demise and actually feel genuinely hurt that you never took his warning seriously right before he brained you with a lawn jockey.

Orange doesn't glance from his set path, eyes forward. "Yeah sure, Blonde. Any time."

"I'm tryin' to quit, but thanks anyway." There it was, the little snag of a half-truth. If Vega were trying to quit, he'd have waved the offer away and said nah, man, I'm trying to quit. But taking something offered by a partner on a job held a second meaning. An honor system demanded that he not turn down the hospitality lest there be some insult in it, and such was the codified politesse of the underworld; you offer a man a cigarette and he better fucking take it.

Orange scoffs, secretly pleased. "Yeah, sure." If Orange was failing for anything better to say, it was because he had sorta already known that about Blonde, about the toothpicks, but had offered the smoke anyway to test the theory of underworld politesse. He'd been surprised at the result, pretty confident up to that point that Vega considered him gum on the bottom of his shoe.

The question drifts up close to Orange's ear, Vega's cool-cat radio DJ voice intimately curious. "You kinda... tender-hearted?"

Orange is startled from his contemplation of the oak wainscoting, and his step falters. "What?" Green eyes thrown wide, and fuck if that don't make Vega snicker.

"You know," Blonde has matched stride easily enough with his longer step, holding a hand up and tilting it back and forth. "You killed that cop 'cos yer tender-hearted. 'S why you and White get along so well." But the way he says it, it nearly sounds like an insult.

Orange mimes cleaning out his ears. "'Scuse me, what-hearted? Christ, Vega, you read too many westerns?" If Vega tenses at being called Vega, then he doesn't let the telling of it get past the hardness in his usual laconic stare-down. Orange pulls up a bit more of his theatrical talents, words dripping with southern politesse, "I  _do declare_ , Bell-May is the  _tender_ est filly this side of the Mississip. Bless her  _tender_ ol' heart." He wants to spit to illustrate his scorn, but they're still indoors so he collects a cigarette to bite down on instead.

Vega is laughing in the usual low rasp. He pauses, suspicion dark and stiff passing over his features before it's willfully buried, and he slouches to chuckle further. "You a thespian in your school days there, cowpoke?"

Something inside Orange freezes and he locks down on it, cursing himself. With someone as sharp as Vega, it was always better to be a non-entity - to not so much as withhold information as to rather illustrate himself in a dull shade. To shut the fuck up unless it was business. "Maybe I used to watch too much T.V." A shrug, as if to roll the scrutiny right down his back. He dismissed the idea of playing dumb and asking just what the hell a thespian even was (dyke-joke opportunity, at the cost of personal dignity), but Orange was smart and was never very good at hiding it. Freddy had decided at the start of his character-building to let Orange be smart, and good at his criminal career. He'd be a drug user by recreation and choice, not by circumstance or plain stupidity.

So yeah, Orange was a cut above the usual pusher. And he knew better than to offer up information of himself, wielding vague agreement to whatever assumptions were thrown at him. 'Maybe' and 'probably not' and 'yeah, sure' a few favorites in his defense. It was easier than juggling lies.

Vega has nearly finished his cigarette, pulling deep and long to settle the day's agitation before he up and got himself into the kind of trouble Eddie had warned him against. "M'kay, Tender-heart." They cross the chilly atrium and step out through the double-doors at a match, but before Orange can make a break for his Gremlin, Blonde has flicked his spent cigarette to a frost-dusted topiary and reached deftly over to snag Orange's smoke right from his mouth. "See you at the site tomorrow, noonish."

Orange is too startled to complain, head darting over his shoulder like a bird bobbing a look at a cat that has just pulled its last tail feather between grinning, sharp teeth. "Yeah, sure." He shrugs his coat closer and barely represses the urge to throw the skinny valet from his car as it pulls up - because there is a difference between accepting a cigarette and taking one right out of a guy's face. Freddy would ask Holdaway what exactly  _that_  was code for, but he had this sinking feeling in his quilted guts that he might already know exactly what Blonde had meant by the theft.

* * *

**SCENE: LBC & DAUGHTERS SHIPPING DOCKS I**

The docking house is large and square and flat, greasy with exhaust and sweat, noisy with engines, the shrill beep-beep-beeping of backing trucks, shouts and curses and package thuds. The cargo ports are preceded by descending ramps cut into swaths of cement so the loaders don't have to bend down as they pass box after box after box from truck to forklift pallet and back. Orange is waiting in one of these vacant depressions, glancing up every now and again at the open port just above his head. Ice has melted and puddled in the opposite corner of the angled square, cigarette butts in various states of decay playing damp tag with a half-crushed Fanta can. Orange scuffs the gritty road salt under his heel and adds another cigarette to the puddle with a casual flick.

It's hidden well by now, but Freddy is wound fairly tight over the fact that Vega had made the point to leave him behind while he hunted out their grift. Nervous fidgets are stilled in their conception, another cigarette is lit with the slow ease of the bored and mildly pissed off. He even manages to keep his questions to himself by the time Vega gets back.

Vic Vega, equally inscrutable, striding down the causeway like he owns it. Vega does not in this instant use a cover for any emotions he may or may not have been having, because Vic Vega (as far as Freddy has observed) is in a constant state of apathy with the world around him. When Vic Vega is acting concerned, when Vic Vega is acting nervous, you know it's  _acting_ , and you can be damn sure he's trying to convince you otherwise - for reasons not necessarily in your favor. So far, Vic Vega is Mr. Blonde, all manners and casual camaraderie and shooting the shit over how hard Eddie's trying to bust his balls with this grunt work. So far.

Freddy doesn't drop character because he can practically see this coming; Vic hasn't stopped in his approach, hasn't even slowed down, and it's Orange who is backed into the cinder wall. Orange who can't even get out a 'what the fuck', punched solidly enough to see stars and taste blood. Freddy retracts the instinct to fight back, trading defense for incredulity, and actually sags into the choke-hold that's got his shoulders pinned to the cold grime of the brick. He coughs, spitting blood off to the side, blinking warily up at his attacker. "Whassafugsat for?"

"You a cop," It's almost a question, and Vic has hesitated, which means Orange was still in the game. "You a lying piece of shit cop, like your old man?"

"What the purple-headed  _fuck_ , Blonde!"

"You're gonna look me in the eye, buddy ol' pal, and you're gonna tell me you're not a rat fink piece of trash. Hey," Blonde slaps Orange, who has glared sharply to the right because meeting the eyes of the guy you aren't allowed to use your hand-to-hand training on wouldn't exactly help his ruse. "Hey, wake up, sunshine. That cold clock was just a love-tap compared to what I'm going to do to you if you been lying to me an' Eddie this whole time." This, in the ever-pleasant genial drawl. Blonde smiles, hunched down to meet Orange face-to-face, raising his eyebrows in expectation.

Freddy digs his heels in deep, hardens his gaze like he's a thieving badass drug-dealer who don't appreciate getting slapped around by the guy he's supposed to be working with. "I ain't no  _fucking_  cop, harebrain." His scowl only steeps in its venom the longer Blonde studies him. "You gonna let me go, or you want me to bleed on you all day."

Blonde tilts his chin, toothpick flicking from one side of his mouth to the other. He doesn't move and Orange makes it a point not to struggle.

Orange relents the victory of their uncomfortable staring contest, because he doesn't want to be there all day and feared his previous ultimatum had come off like some sorta challenge. "Gonna at least tell me how you even got it in your thick skull that I'm some sorta turncoat? Asshole."

"Yeah, sure, I can monologue for yous. How does this sound, New Guy?" Blonde shifts, but only to squeeze a little more air out of his victim. "Jackie-boy back there won't touch the product. Says Beans and Ralph and who all else been getting busted, and Grahame an' TenTrees just got picked up with 'contraband evidence lacking registration serials'. These people sound familiar to you,  _New Guy_? Sound like maybe all the grifts we been dealing with exclusively, just you an' I,  _New Guy_? Sound like maybe a few individuals you mighta spilled your guts – " The metaphor is not lost on Orange, who swallows back a tremor. "about, to some dear old buddy bluebacks back at homebase? Hey, shitstain?"

Orange might get to kill Vega at this point, and blame it on Jackie-boy to keep his cover, but he doubts that's how it would play out. "No. No, Blonde that's not what it sounds like," he rasps, words slow by the numb swell of a split lip in cold air. "Sounds like Eddie gave you a list of his pop's old grifts, who are probably under watch on account of the trial." Orange, to his own surprise, is not panicking. He actually manages to sound genuinely pissed off, despite the fact that he is lying through his teeth and had been entirely responsible for the capture of the elusive grifts. "And fuck, man, if we been selling to Persons of fucking Interest, then we're lucky  _we_  haven't been picked up our own damn selves!" Orange slaps his open palms against the cinder on either side of him, pushing forward a bit as a test of strength against the wall - just to gauge his maneuver options should the situation escalate to further blows. "You gonna let me go now, or – "

Orange doesn't get to finish the clever alternative, because Blonde had stepped curtly away with both hands held up. "Hey cat," Blonde delivers a hard smile that Orange doesn't study too close while catching his breath and wiping his mouth. "No hard feelings. Just had ta make sure."

"Fuck you," Orange spits. "I owe you a busted face, you lunatic."

"Yeah, sure, smallfry. You can call in that debt when the Rapture strikes, hey?" It's a weird metaphor for 'never', but then Vic Vega was a weird guy. He's got a few playful swats to Orange's arm, feinting like he's going to knock him two for flinching, hup-hup-ho'ing like they were buddies again (or even, in the first place). Orange doesn't trust the wide-open opportunity in such chumly instigation for sudden involvement of a switchblade, or a handgun, or a bat taken to Orange's skull and Vega'd just keep on swingin' until there was nothing left but bone gristle and red mist. Nothing left to bury, nothing left to burn.

Orange can't shake that feeling, that edgy wariness, and to this Blonde does not seem to take offense, cheerfully offering to go halfsies on gas when next they fuel up their carefully anonymous moving van (still stocked with contraband antiques).

* * *

**SCENE: CABOT FAMILY TIMESHARE, VENTURA BEACH I**

Orange had been prepared for all the bullshit legwork he'd be doing to get the deeper 'in' he was aiming for; petty crimes and a lot of blowing smoke up influential skirts. So far all the errands had been a cakewalk, compared to what he'd had to do during the great Diamond Fiasco. What he hadn't been prepared for, however, was when that work dried up. When the Cabot family had to start keeping their heads ducked. It was during these high and dry days that he found himself socializing a hell of a lot more than he would have normally allowed for Orange. Making those drug connections to solidify his background, hanging out and schmoozing where he was invited, when he was invited, because even though Freddy Newandyke had a watch team breathing down his neck every spare second didn't mean Frederick Glasgow was terribly busy.

The trip to the Ventura beach property was the product of one such invite, courtesy of Eddie Cabot himself (under house arrest and looking a little on the thin side from all the stress and boy was  _he_  glad to be rid of all that crap for a while, just to kick back and relax and let the pigs run themselves stupid over improvable suspicions). Orange found himself fixing sandwhiches in the fourth-time-refurbished kitchen while the old Mexican maid danced and giggled with one of White's little nephews. The radio on the wide granite countertop had long stopped playing music, Orange dialing the volume up as reports of weather-related deaths and damages escalated.

Snow in L.A. was rare, but not unheard of; wonky ocean temperatures and humidities could do all sorts of magic on the winter forecast. It was rare if it actually stuck, sure, and next to impossible if it ever got over two inches – or lasted more than two days.

Blonde's voice slides between the words of the radio announcement like a knife gone home between somebody's ribs. "I guess the hippies were right. Global warming has fucked everything up."

"Or it's a sign of the end-times." Orange silently congratulates himself for not skipping a beat; sometime in the last spare moment, Eugena and Caspar had vacated the kitchen and Blonde had taken up a silent perch at the bar. "Ready for that clock on the gob I owe ya?" Orange keeps his attention squared down at his task, organizing the salami sandwich on the plate before him as if it were an artform. It was the stoner's appreciation for sandwich-building that showed through every loving spread of the mustard knife and every careful settle of the meat layers.

Blonde chuckles dry and low, sliding from the bar to circle to the fridge as if it were live prey. There is the compunct blast of cool air and the rattle and clink of a fresh brew gained victoriously, and Blonde has settled against the counter in a lounge that Orange is seventy percent positive is supposed to be intimidating, and thirty percent suspicious it was only intimidating because Blonde was the one doing it. "Don't you ever switch off, Susie Q? Why you gotta be such a smart-ass all the time?"

Orange tilts his head back and forth in a nervous mock. "Would you rather I were a dumb-ass? 'Cos I dunno about you, Blondie, but I don't wanna work with no dumb-asses." A sniff, a hitch of the shoulders, the slap of lettuce and tomato wedges from their tray. "Just me, though." Orange turns into the advance, mustard knife left pointedly behind.

Blonde had moved quick the way he liked to, but stopped short of actually delivering the strike, clenching and unclenching his fist beside Orange's face, biting his lips around a smile to illustrate that he really  _wanted to_  go through with it, but was going to abstain on account of his generous nature. The fist turns into a pointing finger. "No fucking sass, for a goddamn single afternoon. 'S all I ask."

Orange manages to pull up concern from the depths of his irritation. It'd be best if he could avoid conflict, maybe especially with Blonde. "Jesus, Vega, I didn't mean no disrespect." He turns back to the plate if only to put a little space between them again. "That's just how I joke, y'know?" Sucks a bit of mustard from the corner of his thumb, resumes assembling White's sandwich. By the time he's left to deliver the masterpiece (hey thanks, Freddy, you're a saint) and returned to make a plate of his own, Blonde is back to his lounge against the counter, contemplative over the lip of his beer.

It doesn't bother Orange at first, the silent menace in that bright, clean open space. But then again, there are a lot of knives around and even a stove and oh christ has a Vega brother ever killed anybody with a fridge, and was that same idea what had Blonde so deep in thought?

"So... Freddy? That short for Manfred?"

Orange isn't startled. Freddy Newandyke, Detective Manfred Newandyke, he's just burst an aneurism in panic. "The fuck you get a name like that from? The Bible?" Before he's accused of smarting off again, "It's short for Frederick. Frederick Glasgow."

Blonde chuckles. "I know." He steps forward and offers a hand, but Orange is busy with his lunch and doesn't trust Vega as far as he can throw him. "Nice to meet ya, Freddy. It's Vic, short for Victor. Vega."

Orange sighs through his nose, unsurprised he'd been researched. "I know."

"I guess you got that knowledge from hearin' Eddie holler it around all the time."

Orange nods and waits for Blonde's hand to drop, and when it drops, he waits for Vega to leave. When Vega doesn't leave, when he just stands there and stares with a beer held to the counter like it's going to run away, Orange glances over his shoulder with an affronted "What?"

"Whaddya mean, 'what'?"

Orange looks to the left, to the right, tilting his chin until his neck cracks as if to shake Vega's attention. "Whaddya starin' at?"

A chuckle, that almost-pity smirk Vega likes to give to Eddie sometimes. "Nothin'." A shrug, eyes piecing up Orange's frame toe to head. "A whole lotta nothin'."

"Fine." Quietly, amicably, Orange is playing Blonde's game. "Fuck you too, then."

A protest rises in the back of Blonde's throat, like he's just stepped in roadkill and ruined a good pair of boots. "Fuck yourself, I was being nice just now."

"Not gonna shake hands when I'm eating, Vega. Ain't sanitary."

Vega wraps himself in, hands on elbows, tilting away from Orange to regard him at a distance, grin smug. " _Ey_ , you fuckin' germaphobe, says who?"

"Says my job at the Deli in '86."

Victor sucks a front tooth, nodding to himself. He very deliberately sets down his beer, walks to the large stainless double sink, makes a show of turning the faucet, getting the temperature just right, the right amount of soap, the proper scrubbing technique, and washes his hands. Like maybe he used to work at a restaurant too, shaking and rubbing his hands dry instead of using a towel, turning the tap off with his elbow.  Orange is paying attention to all this because Orange doesn't rightly know if this is going to be the last sandwich he eats that doesn't come out of a straw.

Instead of offering another handshake, though, Victor stands close. Closer than he usually does just to prove he can invade your space, and that's pretty damn close already. Vega reaches past Freddy's hip and takes his now-completed sandwich. It is a competition with the forecast for who can be cooler; Orange pretending that it don't bother him, what's happening. Or Vega, who is doing it in the first place, taking a large bracing bite of another man's sandwich just because they both knew he could.

Orange takes a deep breath. Steps aside to put a plate's distance between he and Vic, and fills that space with a plate, which Vic takes with a nod of gratitude.

Vega remains in place, and after he swallows the first bite with an obnoxious smack of enjoyment, tosses sandwich and plate part and parcel to the counter like it was yesterday's newspaper.

Orange is very still, studying the beer Vega had left near the sink.

Vega's got the heel of one hand propped against the edge of the nice granite countertop, his other fist curled in the space his hip-holster would be if they had been allowed in the house armed. Vega's elbow is thrown back and his neck is craned forward like something out of a bad wild west film. Watching Orange. Way too close. Aftershave and salami spice.

Orange gives his protest up halfway, rolling his eyes with a scoff. If Vega was going to do the intimidation thing all day, then Orange could just be elsewhere - preferably with White, who was hilariously PG around his sister's kids. An inspiration strikes last minute (Improv, see) and as he leaves the kitchen, Freddy snakes a hand out to take Blonde's beer with him.

 


End file.
